


Knight-errant

by pepperfield



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Fluff, Gen, M/M, Post-Sburb/Sgrub
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-11
Updated: 2012-04-11
Packaged: 2017-11-03 10:44:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/380516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pepperfield/pseuds/pepperfield
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the game, things are pretty damn great, even if Dave accidentally goes non-linear once in a while.</p><p>(in other words, John tries to help Dave cope with spontaneous temporal displacement)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knight-errant

The autumn leaves rustle outside your window, and you can feel the wind threading through the branches. You blink sleepily at the ceiling, wondering why you woke up. Your arm is crushed underneath Jade's torso, but you manage to extricate your trapped limb without disturbing her. This isn't really a great feat, since it's basically impossible to wake Jade once she's out. With a quiet mumble, she rolls over and smushes her face right into Rose's leg. You try not to laugh.  
  
It takes you a minute to realize that the warm lump formerly curled into your side is missing. Where did Dave disappear to? If the sun were up, you would leave him to his own activities, but for him to be awake on a night like this is a bad sign. It's a good thing he has you for a best bro. You open your door slowly, and tiptoe down the hall, trying not to wake Mom and Dad. Bro's door is also firmly closed, so he's (hopefully) still asleep. One time, you made the mistake of opening his door without knocking, and you nearly died of a heart attack when a whole mountain of smuppets rained down on you, and then almost died yet again when Bro rose from out of the plush pile. Without saying a word, he lowered his shades just enough for you to make eye contact and for him to level that unnerving stare at you. You nodded hastily and absconded, your lesson well learned.  
  
But tonight, the rest of the house is asleep, even Bec, who has commandeered the sofa downstairs. You sidle with ninja-like precision past him, not that it matters; he probably knows you're there anyway. You peek in the kitchen and the study, but you already know Dave isn't going to be there. So you walk to the front door, stopping to wave at Nanna's urn and Grandpa Harley's shadowy figure, and let yourself out of the house. As you suspected, Dave is in the backyard, perched on your pogo ride. Normally, you would sneak up on him, but he might fall off the slime and break his neck. You let the breeze brush softly around him to signal your presence. Luckily, he turns around and beckons you with a small nod.  
  
"Hey, Dave." You sit down on the ground next to the pogo ride on the cold grass. You haven't been on the thing in a while, but Dave seems to enjoy it. You're not sure if it's entirely ironic - he sits on it like a little bird clutching precariously onto a branch flailing helplessly in the wind. Okay, yeah, maybe sometimes you send an extra gust in his direction when you see him on the ride.  
  
"Sup." He's wearing the shades, which isn't a surprise; he usually even wears them when he sleeps, but sometimes he lets his guard down and walks drowsily around the house for a while before he remembers to put them on. You like those moments, because it means that he trusts you, all of you. Sometimes you're afraid that the others aren't as happy as you are with this arrangement, and since you are so very ridiculously pleased, it seems likely that they just might not be as stoked. But then you remember Mom and Jade doing science experiments in the kitchen, your ectosister chattering happily away and Mom without a martini glass in hand for once. You remember Dad trying to lull Bec into compliance with a cupcake, and Bro and Rose's ironically self-indulgent/self-indulgently ironic wizard and pony themed poetry slams. The rest of the family just watches in wonder when the verbal beat(nik)downs start flying: it's best not to get involved, especially when dishwashing duty is at stake.  
  
You remember that yes, you can call them your family now, and then you sort of just stand around smiling goofily until Dave rolls his eyes behind his shades, which you can't see but you're sure he's doing, and drags you off to play some terrible video games.   
  
(Karkat always makes fun of you for your extreme paranoia, but you guys now check with the trolls before ever starting a game, just to make sure you never accidentally end the world again. This is partially to stay on the safe side, and partially because you just like having reasons to harass your cranky god/friend.)  
  
Tonight, the moon is close to full, and hangs heavy in the sky, surrounded by the sharp pinpricks of the stars. There isn't much light pollution in your neighborhood, so it's easy to make out the details of the night sky. Dave likes to use the balcony to stargaze, since he has easy access to it from his room, which was installed next to yours when the house was being renovated. Mom may always be tipsy, but she's a tipsy, brilliant, millionaire scientist, who could afford to send a ship to collect Jade and all of Grandpa Harley's crap, and who could certainly afford to spruce up a suburban house in Washington.  
  
"Sooo, where did you end up tonight?" you finally ask, after trying to gauge his mood for a few minutes.  
  
"I don't warp through space, Egbert. That's Harley's thing, you doof."  
  
"Hahaha, sorry, I meant 'when'. When did you end up tonight? Uh, if you want to talk about it." When he doesn't want to talk, you settle for sitting quietly with him until his mood dissolves. Sometimes you end up falling asleep on his shoulder, but he never pushes you away. You wish you could do more, but you can't really understand what he goes through. All you can do is be there when he returns, ready with a bottle of apple juice or a pillow.  
  
"Nah, it wasn't a big deal this time. Just jumped forward about a week, accidentally creeped on some sort of ladies-only feelings jam nap, then managed to ditch before they woke up and attacked me with Squiddles. No new future-past Daves running around like headless chickens. At least, no more than the ones you already know about." Dave gets off the pogo slime with a minimal amount of rocking and pulls you to your feet. "Do us a favor and make a leaf pile."  
  
"Wow, is that all I am to you, a glorified leaf blower? Harsh, Dave." You stick your tongue out childishly at him but start to do as he says anyway. Your powers aren't great for precision though, so you manage to whip a bunch of leaves into the same general patch of grass, and the two of you work together to form a proper pile. You settle into the crisp mattress of leaves with Dave by your side, and grin to yourself. "If this is what all piles are like, then I guess I understand why trolls are so into making them. Though the leaf bits are kinda ruining my sweater."  
  
You're a little sad that Dave didn't run into future-you, who would've totally given him a hug in the place of present-you. You go kind of overboard with the hugs, but you think they're helpful, so you're not stopping any time soon. Rose allows small handsqueezes once in a while to make sure the grimdark stays away, even though you're both pretty sure it will. When Jade first joined you, the two of you would hug whenever she wanted, to acclimate her to human touch again. Bec may be a good dog, and Jade's best friend, but he is not so great with the tender human embraces, only devilbeast/doggy kisses. Bec is also very good at one other thing, and that's finding his master.  
  
Even though none of you remained god-tier after the game, you each retained a good deal of your powers. You still have a moderately strong control over the wind, though you don't think you can make tornado drills anymore. Along with her space powers, Jade had apparently kept some of the warping abilities she had inherited from Becquerel. Just enough to send her zapping off somewhere when she got a bit too worked up. The first time this happened, you all flipped out, except for Rose, who calmly went to fetch Bec. He also disappeared with a spark of green, and two minutes later, both girl and dog were safely back home. Every time Jade disappears, you can count on her guardian to find her again.  
  
Unfortunately for Dave, the same does not apply to him.  
  
When his time abilities glitch, there is nothing any of you can do except wait out his return. His first time occurred a week or so after Jade's first spatial accident. The four of you had been two thirds of the way through your second "Educate Jade on the Finer Points of Cinema" movie marathon, when Dave, half-asleep and starting to fall over onto Rose, suddenly blipped out of existence. The remaining three of you froze, waiting for him to come back. When fifteen minutes had gone by without his return, Jade ran off to find Bec to send him after Dave. Becquerel left, but, unable to find your missing friend, came back soon after. To this day, none of you are sure why he can locate Jade, but not Dave; Rose theorizes that Bec is able to track Jade down because her warping powers, unlike Dave's, also come from the Green Sun.  
  
In any case, you all sat around in silence until an hour later, when Dave reappeared in the kitchen, only for the family to immediately sweep him into a crushing group hug. Dad whipped a "welcome back, pseudo-ecto-step-son" cake out of the oven, and forced it on Dave after he struggled away from Bro's violent hair rufflings. When you asked about what happened, he shrugged and said he guessed he lost control for a second and automatically jumped into the future. For some reason, he wasn't able to travel back right away, and even when he could, he somehow missed his destination by an hour or two. He sort of stared at you while telling you this, with a slightly red tinge to his face, and you blinked back, confused. That night, you and your friends decided to hold a sleepover, so that just in case Dave left again, you would all be there for his reappearance.  
  
That's pretty much how the last year or so of your life has been: hanging out with your ecto-step family and trying to help Dave with his itinerant time problems. You and Rose lose control occasionally as well, but for you that just means accidentally blowing over a tent or two, and for Rose, accidentally seeing things that she really rather wouldn't. But with Dave, sometimes after he's back he looks so lost, and it breaks everyone's heart. Alright, it probably only makes Jade really sad, but each of you try to help in your own way. Jade busts out the board games, while Rose slows down with the psychoanalysis and Bro cuts back with the strifes. You're usually there for him when he jumps late at night, and you've gotten used to waking up and waiting out his journey.  
  
Tonight is atypical, in that Dave is usually still gone by the time you wake up. You're glad though; even though it means you missed a chance to see future-past Dave, it must have been a safe, uneventful trip. You reach out and squeeze his hand, happy that he's here with you now.  
  
He returns the squeeze, but won't let it go without a verbal jab. "Hand hug, John? You better watch out, Rose might get jealous. I'm a little upset that you don't even put any variety in your moves. Way to make a girl feel like she isn't special."  
  
"Well, we can't all be smooth operators like you, Mr. Strider. Teach me your ways, oh great one. How can I make the ladies swoon?"  
  
"For one, make sure you've got a different nickname for each one. It's not going to be pretty if they find out you've got more than one Cherry Pie in your life."  
  
"Don't worry, Dave, you're my only Cherry Pie."  
  
"Damn right, I am. And like I said, make sure you give each girl a special touch, got it? You do the handholding thing with Rose. Jade gets tackle hugs. I demand, nay, I  _deserve_ something new."  
  
"Uh, well, first of all, Jade is my sister, so ew. Second of all, Rose is basically my sister, so basically ew. And third of all, is this good enough for you?" You squiggle closer to him through the leaves, before leaning up, carefully removing his shades, and pressing an Eskimo kiss to his face. His pale face flares up with bright pink and you laugh. He really is the most easily flustered, that coolkid dork. "I'll take that as a yes."  
  
"What, no, definitely do not do that." He rises up from the leaves to glare at you and snatches his glasses back.  
  
"Nope, it's too late! This is what you asked for, this is what you get. This is now our default Tender Moment Touch. You can't escape it." He punches you in the arm, but he's smiling, and the two of you slap ineffectively at each other for a while before you drag him back into the house to go to bed.  
  
\--  
  
The next morning, you wander downstairs in search of a bowl of cereal. You can hear Jade giggling from outside as she digs around in the dirt while listening to Rose narrate a trashy romance novel. You expect to see Dad reading the paper on the couch, or maybe Bro undertaking one of his sewing projects, but no one's around. Probably at the store or something. Just as you're about to enter the kitchen, you hear a muffled thud behind you. Turning around, you see that Dave, who was previously nowhere in the vicinity, has rolled off the couch. In fact, you're pretty sure Dave might still be asleep, which means this must be a future-past Dave!  
  
You haven't run into a future-past Dave in a while. Sometimes, it's just because you're not around when he jumps into your time, but it's mostly because Dave is traveling far into the future, you guess. You actually kind of worry about this; you're fairly sure that part of the reason he gets melancholy sometimes is because he sees old versions of all the rest of you, or maybe one of you is dead in the time he jumps to. If you think about it, you don't actually know how long he spends in the future, and you're afraid that if he jumps back right as soon as he can, he might end up aging faster than he should, and that would suck! You make a mental note to tell this Dave about it.  
  
"Hey dude, what are you doing down there?" He just sort of looks at you, and then back at the empty couch.  
  
"The fuck? How did I get here?"  
  
"If I had to take a completely wild guess, I would go with time shenanigans." He still looks confused, so you take pity on him. "Um. You know, that thing you're able to do? That you lose control of sometimes, which sends you careening off into the future?"  
  
"Lose control? Like Jade did last week?" It's starting to dawn on you that maybe he's never done this before; this might actually be the first future-past Dave! Poor guy, he must be confused as fuck. You hop over the couch and pull him into a hug.  
  
"Oh, no wait, sorry, that's wrong." You stop hugging him and give him an Eskimo kiss instead, before you realize that he has no idea why you would be doing that. Yep, he's red again, hahahaha. "Anyway, don't worry about losing control; it happens to all of us! It's just a little more complicated when it happens to you, I guess. But we're all here for you!"  
  
"Okay, cool." He takes it pretty well. You actually shouldn't really be surprised, Dave can cope well with some things, and he definitely understands time better than you do. "I guess I'll just mosey on back then. Nice seeing you, Egbert." But he continues to sit there. And sit. "Welp, guess I don't have it back yet." You notice his brow crease slightly, and you pat him heartily on the back.  
  
"Look, why don't you come eat breakfast with me until you can go back, okay?"  
  
"John, it's one in the goddamn morning when I just came from."  
  
"Oh, sorry. Well, I guess you can watch me eat breakfast and then we can go dump a bucket of water on present-Dave." He shrugs and follows you into the kitchen, where Mom is tottering around, trying to make pancakes and a mimosa at the same time. You update him a little more on his time-hopping, to help prepare him. You tell him that for some reason he never travels to the past, which the rest of you think might be a sign that he'll get it under control someday, since none of you have ever seen an old Dave pop up. After hanging out for about an hour, he decides to try going back.  
  
"Alright, time to see if this works." You snort at the stupid pun, and start waving goodbye before you remember what you had to tell him.  
  
"Wait! When you go back, you should probably skip forward the same amount of time you were here. If you go back to when you left, you'll gain an hour. But since you keep time-traveling, you're going to add hours each time, which was okay in the game, but here..." At his skeptical look, you continue, "I just don't want you getting older than the rest of us, okay? It wouldn't be fair to you if you're old and wrinkly while the rest of us are still young and beautiful, right?" You don't want Dave to die before the rest of you. You don't want to have to understand that look he sometimes gets in his eyes when he comes back from the future.  
  
He smirks at you, but nods obligingly. "Okay, Egbert, I'll keep up my youthful good looks just for you. Bye."  
  
You leap forward to give Dave another Tender Moment Touch before he leaves, but end up just kind of squishing your mouth against his cheek. He looks scandalized for a split second, but then he's gone. You guess you now understand why he was looking at you weirdly back in his time. Other than that, you think things worked out well. You're glad his first trip turned out not to be completely traumatizing.  
  
You start washing the dishes until the kitchen door opens, and you see your own Dave staring groggily at you. He doesn't have the shades, and you smile at him.  
  
"Here, Mom left you some breakfast. I think I just defiled a future-past you." You dry off your hands and go sit down, Dave taking the stool next to you. He's still sort of out of it and ends up flopping onto your shoulder as he eats his eggs and pancakes. You can hear Bro and Mom strifing in the living room, and from the strange commotion coming from the utility room, you think Bec might be eating one of Rose's knitted creatures again. The hum of a motor tells you that Dad's home from the store, and that any second, Jade will probably burst in with the groceries.  
  
You are sitting in your kitchen surrounded by the people you love, and you think life is pretty damn perfect. Even if your best friend might suddenly disappear from your side, you know he'll always find his way back, and you'll always be here waiting. He notices your stupid smile and snorts, before he purposely starts dripping syrup on your pants. You yelp and fall backwards just as both Bec and Jade rush into the kitchen from two different doors. Approximately twenty seconds later, your father stands over the mess you've all just managed to create, and announces how proud he is of your liveliness. You lie in your puddle of syrup and grin.  
  
Just another Sunday afternoon.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Not Again](https://archiveofourown.org/works/455976) by [fujibutts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fujibutts/pseuds/fujibutts)




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